FY13 Annual Report

TTS Educational & Scholarly Technology Services (ESTS) is a university-wide service organization supporting innovative and meaningful integration of technology for clients engaged in teaching, learning, and collaboration across diverse academic contexts at Tufts and beyond.

Projects Highlights & New Service Offerings from ESTS:

Trunk-related:

Production rollout of Trunk-based Online Course Evaluations for all Schools and programs using Trunk; participation on AS&E Student Course Evaluations committee to redesign the instrument for AY2013-14. Planned FY14 work to create a data warehouse for course evaluation data to enable simpler and more flexible reporting beginning in January 2014.

Migration of non-clinical Public Health Programs to Trunk beginning in Summer Session 2013, including workshops for faculty and extension of the Trunk coordinated service and support model.

Trunk enhancements during second year of production:

Integration of Respondus Lockdown Browser

Integration of TurnItIn

Implementation of iSIS feeds for Trunk

Version upgrade to Sakai 2.8.7.4

Partnered with rSmart (now AsahiNet) to fix Sakai search and to ensure this fix is contributed back to the community.

Continuous enhancement to Trunk Support site based on faculty and student questions and suggestions and continued publication of Trunk Tips.

Mobile Technology Explorations:

iPads for Education pilot included faculty development for ~50 participating faculty in the fall and 4 course projects in the spring. The pilot continues through summer and into fall 2013, and assessment of the first year’s pilot is underway. Half-day iPad workshop in Grafton.

JumboStudy mobile web site launched to allow students within courses to self-organize study groups; includes links to course library guides and contact information for librarians who support the course. Next step is to design the app as a native iOS app with push notification to make it more useful for students.

Contribution to selection of Modo Labs’ Kurogo Framework as part of UIT Mobile project

ePortfolio service for Tufts launched. The ePortfolio service provides consultation with all Tufts community members who are interested in exploring the potential of ePortfolios to meet their goals, templated Trunk- and WordPress-based portfolio sites that can be adapted to meet program or course goals, and a faculty development component focused on raising awareness about ePortfolios for assessment and for showcasing development and competencies. We are consulting with clients on potential ePortfolio projects and building out the first ePortfolios for FY14.

R&D service launched to support experimentation, research, and evaluation of emerging technologies for teaching and learning

1 Summer Street and TAB Data Center migrations of academic technology systems, and infrastructure migration from AT ESX virtualization environment to TTS UCS/ESX environment. Migration to the new TTS architecture is underway and will be completed this calendar year.

TTS Web Style Guide produced in partnership with University Relations

Accessibility Guidelines developed in partnership with university colleagues

Conducted ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and IT and published report on prior year’s data

Strategy roadmap for multimedia infrastructure and services – this project has completed the initial phases of assessing needs, recommending and beginning to implement interim solutions, and charting a course for developing a longer-range roadmap.

Organizational changes related to IT Integrated Service Experience for Medford Campus project and active participation in planning for enhanced IT service delivery.

Active participation on IT Website Redesign project, including facilitation of UCD activities.

Participation on T10 Digital & Online Initiatives working group and in community conversations around the “Prelude to the Strategic Plan.”

Participation on A&S Online Learning & Education Working Group, which has just completed its report for the Dean.

Participation in TEAM – Tufts Effectiveness in Administrative Management – sharing of data and reflections to support analysis in IT and library areas.

The Flipped Classroom: Rethinking the Way You Teach, an online seminar led by Dr. Ike Shibley

Brown Bags in Grafton

EdTech@Lunch: Using Clickers for Active Questioning

EdTech@Lunch: Capturing Student Thinking with Microblogs

Planning committee for 26th University-wide Teaching Conference entitled “Engage and Inspire – Learning through Teamwork” on December 12, 2012, and commitment to participate on the planning committee for the 27th University-wide Teaching Conference focused on “The Science of Learning & The Art of Teaching,” scheduled for December 10, 2013.

Continued participation in GIFT – Graduate Institute for Teaching – sponsored by Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Library Collaborations & Digital Asset Management:

TDL Redesign with Hydra was completed in late fall 2012. Reviews from internal Tufts colleagues and Fedora/Hydra community members outside Tufts have been positive, and the TDL was featured on the Hydra Partners site.

At the request of Tom Cramer, ESTS and DCA have prepared a partnership letter requesting that Tufts be included in the Hydra Partners program, which means we support the endeavor philosophically and will share models, our best thinking, and code whenever possible with the broader Hydra community. We also benefit from code developed by others and have a voice in influencing future development of Hydra.

Digital Asset Management Working Group wrapping up planning work in the areas of Collections, Service Model Design, and Architecture.

We continue to hone project and service portfolio management practices in alignment with ESTS needs and broader organizational evolution. This year we introduced monthly ESTS Leadership Team project review meetings with Brian Miller, both as a way to stay current on developments in TTS project portfolio management models and as a way to build a more consistent practice of portfolio management within the directorate.

Staff Presentations/Service beyond Tufts:
Members of ESTS share exemplary Tufts projects and professional best practices with colleagues in the broader professional community and serve in various leadership capacities within professional organizations.

Multiple staff also presented at regional and national events: GeoPortal at multiple venues, future of libraries and IT at CLIR, etc.

Chair NERCOMP Board of Trustees Nominating Committee

Participation on international Teaching with Sakai Innovation Awards Selection Committee

Institutional Representative for NERCOMP

Institutional Representative for DuraSpace and CNI

Continuing stewardship for Faculty IT Liaison Program

Continued participation as ITSM Advisory Board member and CAB members

Review of New Course Proposals for the ExCollege

Connected Tufts staff and faculty with the Boston-area Digital Humanities community of practice, a consortial endeavor led by Brandeis, with participation from Harvard, MIT, Wellesley, Wheaton, NEJM (Rob Chavez!), and many others.